The audience tapes have been fine, but it's a real pleasure to hear such a clean, strong tape of this very enjoyable show. I certainly agree with jtseay that Pittsburgh and Roanoke (musically more night 2) were the highlight shows of the summer - they were the most "87-y" in a good way, bursting with energy and strength. 5 stars is objectively out of line I suppose, but I don't feel bad about grading on a "wow, finally!" curve.

Most of the Healy Ultramatrix tapes of this era are in the very poor to mediocre range, so either this is a wonderful exception, Charlie did something magical (could it be that the AUD and SBD were tracked separately as long rumored, so that they could be resynced?) or it's a Pearson master. Only Charlie knows, if anyone! Regardless, thanks for the upgrade. It sounds great.

The Neville Bros band members performing were:

Art Neville - played on Brent's keyboards and sang a verse of Iko, plus backing vocals
Aaron Neville - vocals (particularly evident on Knockin') and hand percussion (cowbell?)
Cyril Neville - drums/percussion, backing vocals, I think that's his lead vocal on Day-O
Bryan Stoltz - guitar

The above per my relatively sober memory as correlated by the 2nd photo from jtseay below.

Fun show! It was a great break from the overblown, hot as hell stadium shows that summer. Pittsburgh and Roanoke right after were really 87 summer highlights for me.

Here are some pictures of this show that I took.

http://www.dead.net/fanphotos/1987-07-06-pittsburgh-civic-arena-pittsburgh-pa-5

http://www.dead.net/fanphotos/1987-07-06-pittsburgh-civic-arena-pittsburgh-pa-1

http://www.dead.net/fanphotos/1987-07-06-pittsburgh-civic-arena-pittsburgh-pa

Well, maybe not... We always hoped they would roll the roof back when they played here, but had to settle for it being symbolically blown off. A great seedy place to see shows. Created the perfect Dead environment. This particular night there was supposed to be reserved seating on the floor, but after careful review, we started at the front, & stacked up all the folding chairs & got on with it.
Long ass overnight haul to Roanoke that may have been slightly underestimated.
As for the music- Thanks for this huge upgrade CM!
Just listen to the crowd (plenty of it on this Ultramix). Takes a good bit of Stranger to get the sound dialed in, but pretty good after that. A very nice show. Enjoy. We did.

This is an outstanding quality recording for a few reasons. 1st the Neville Brothers fit rite in with the boys. As Bobby used to often say " Just Like a Swish Watch " Smooth as silk transitions between songs on this night. Think about it this tour featured Dylan & Dead for a 3rd set In Philly along with Giants stadium and Foxboro the 2nd set as they played one long set to themselves then Dylan and Dead . All the practice sessions in early May were about this upcoming tour to get the tunes down just rite. And what we have here is the Neville Bros joined the Dead mid tour without practice sessions . And Yes I know they played few times before this.
Sounds like they were the featured tour guest.
2nd reason is the person put this recording together for our listening pleasure ..... This one is an A + show all around.